1. Statement of the Technical Field
The present invention relates to application help systems and more particularly to providing composed help for an aggregation of applications.
2. Description of the Related Art
Distributing content about large computer communications networks is not without its challenges. In particular, the quantity of content available for distribution in a computer communications network often varies proportionally to the size of the computer communications network. At the extreme, the Internet hosts a vast quantity of content not easily accessible by most end-users. Content aggregation systems such as portals represent a sensible solution to the problem of aggregating content through a channel paradigm in a single, network-addressable location. In consequence, aggregation technologies like portals have become the rage in content distribution.
Portlets are the visible active components included as part of portal pages. Similar to the graphical windows paradigm of windowing operating systems, each portlet in a portal occupies a portion of the portal page through which the portlet can display associated content from a portlet channel. Portlets are known to include both simple applications such as an electronic mail client, and also more complex applications such as forecasting output from a customer relationship management system. The prototypical portlet can be implemented as server-side scripts executed through a portal server.
From the end-user perspective, a portlet is a content channel or application to which the end-user can subscribe. By comparison, from the perspective of the content provider, a portlet is a means through which content can be distributed in a personalized manner to a subscribing end-user. Finally, from the point of view of the portal, a portlet merely is a component which can be rendered within the portal page. In any case, by providing one or more individually selectable and configurable portlets in a portal, portal providers can distribute content and applications through a unified interface in a personalized manner according to the preferences of the end-user.
Portal servers are computer programs which facilitate the distribution of portal based Web sites on the public Internet or a private intranet. Importantly, it will be recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art that the signature characteristic of all conventional portal servers can include the aggregation of content from several portlet applications within a single distributable page in a uniform manner. To that end, each portlet application within the portal page can be represented by a portlet user interface distributed by the portal server to requesting client computing devices.
New content distribution technologies like portal technologies bring a new dimension to creating dynamically composed applications. For instance a portal server can aggregate a Web page using content from multiple, independently developed portlets. The portlets may be written by the same portlet writer, or a different portlet writer. Considering the dynamic nature of such aggregated pages, the conventional help mechanisms configured for use with singular applications cannot suffice for composite applications such as those produced in the portal environment.
For instance, it is well known that in singular application environment, a structured help document can be coupled to the singular application and triggered by the selection of a help option disposed within the user interface of the application. As a one to one correspondence exists between the help system and the application, the entirety of the help documentation can be accessed through the help system. In the portal environment, however, each portlet can be considered a separate application which has been aggregated with other applications to form a composite application. As such, each portlet will have its own help system and a unified system of help will not exist.
While it has been suggested that a single comprehensive help document can suffice for aggregate applications such as portals, this view remains flawed because the composition forming the aggregate application can change based upon the personalization feature of portal technology. Accordingly, to present a comprehensive help document addressing all possible permutations of the applications in the aggregation can produce an unwieldy and unhelpful help document. Thus, there is a need for a help system that can dynamically aggregate help or information to match the aggregation of the pages in the composite application.
Producing a help system that can dynamically aggregate help or information to match the aggregation of the pages in the composite application is not without its own challenges. In conventional help systems, a search engine can located particular topics within the single help document through a keyword searching of the help document. To facilitate and accelerate the searching process, the single help document can be indexed by keyword. In this way, the index can be searched much more quickly and the pertinent location of the desired information can be located by reference to the index. In a system of dynamically aggregated help information, however, the help documents forming the dynamic aggregation can change as often as the components of the composite application. Thus, re-indexing will be required frequently if not always—whenever the composition changes.